Also okays women cadets
House refuses to chop weapons package
WASHINGTON (UPI) — Mind
ful of claims America’s military re
solve is doubted in some quarters,
the House Tuesday rejected all ef
forts to cut the Pentagon’s $32 bill
ion weapons procurement bill and
approved it intact.
In two days of voting, the House
turned back successive efforts to
trim back the B1 bomber program
and the Trident submarine prog
ram, and to eliminate the A10
fighter plane project all together.
A final effort to slice $1.9 billion
from the measure, a proposal that
would have left it to the Defense
Department to designate prog
rams to be cut back, was easily
beaten 216-183.
Before final passage the House
approved an amendment ordering
the services to admit women to
the military academies on the
same terms as men, combat as
signments included. The vote was
303-96.
The giant authorization bill,
covering a 15-month period be
ginning July 1, was sent to the Se
nate on a roll call vote of 333-63.
The Senate’s own $30.3 billion
version is to be debated there later
in the week, with a final vote prob
ably coming after the Memorial
Day recess which ends June 2.
Among other amendments re
jected by the House was one to
cut back U.S. troops stationed ab
road by 70,000 persons. It was
defeated 311-95.
This coincided with urgings
from The Senate Armed Services
Man is seadog’s best friend
NEWARK, N.J. (UPI) — The captain of a
schooner which sank in the icy waters of the
Atlantic Ocean last year was indicted for man
slaughter Tuesday for refusing to throw his
80-pound dog out of a lifeboat and let two men
crawl aboard.
Captain Cyril LaBrecque, 50, of Santa Ana,
Calif., was charged by a federal grand jury with
causing the deaths of two Connecticut high
school graduates, Bradford Blakely, 20, and
Paul Sagarino, 19, who died of exposure after
nine hours of clinging to the lifeboat in
43-degree waters.
Their bodies were found tied to the side of
the boat on Jan. 29,1974, when an oil tanker
spotted it five miles off Atlantic City and re
scued the four survivors — LaBreque, his wife,
an injured crewman and a Navy veteran who
finally crawled aboard the lifeboat. The dog, an
11-year-old Labrador retriever named "Hap
per,” also survived and was taken to an animal
shelter for treatment. LaBrecque was reported
to have told authorities that he could not bear
to throw the dog overboard.
According to Tuesday’s indictment, the two
Connecticut high school graduates and Navy
veteran Valentine Bach, 47, of Chester, Conn.,
were forced to tie themselves with ropes to the
edge of the 11-foot wooden lifeboat and float in
the icy waters.
LaBrecque allegedly refused repeated re
quests to throw his dog overboard. The indict
ment also charged that he refused to allow the
three persons outside the boat to rotate posi
tions with the three persons sitting inside it.
After nine hours it became apparent that
Blakely and Sagarino, both recent graduates
of South Windsor, Conn., High School, had
died of exposure. At that point, Bach struggled
aboard.
Goldstein said LaBrecque faces a maximum
14 years in jail if convicted on all three counts in
the indictment.
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Committee that no major deploy
ment of American servicemen be
made overseas until the nation
can resolve the uncertainty that
resulted from the loss of South
Vietnam.
related to U.S. security interests.”
The committee asked the Pen
tagon to report by the end of the
year on long-term basing of U.S.
forces in the Pacific and Asia —
including Korea, Japan, Taiwan,
The committee specifically
cautioned against any more re
duction of American military
power in the Pacific — particularly
South Korea — until the United
States develops a clear post
Vietnam Asian policy.
In a major report, the committee
said “now is not the time for major
redeployment of American
forces."
The current period is one of un
certainty in the wake of the recent
upheaval in Southeast Asia and
continuing instability in other
areas of the world," the report
said.
‘The results of the major events
that have taken place in South
east Asia over the last few weeks
are not yet clearly apparent and
the broad range of implications for
U.S. foreign policy have not been
thoroughly assessed.”
The committee called American
military forces "a foreign policy in
strument” and said their presence
"should be carefully tailored" and
strictly tied to U.S. objectives as
the Philippines and other loca
tions.
The committee said it would be
"psychologically and militarily de
trimental" to withdraw forces from
Korea but said keeping any major
combat forces in Thailand serves
no U.S. interests.
In a report accompanying the
military procurement bill, the
committee noted that troop levels
in the Pacific have been cut from
243,000 in 1964—before the Viet
nam buildup — to 1S5.000.
"Although there are questions
which can be raised regarding the
number of military personnel the
United States keeps in any par
ticular country or base, we should
not continue cutting our military
forces in the Pacific until we have
developed a clear policy upon
which we can base a military
posture,” the report said.
Among the committee’s re
commendations was withdrawal
from Thailand because — with the
fall of South Vietnam and Cam
bodia — U.S. oombat forces are
no longer needed there.
riipi roundup
Sirhan free in 10V2 years
SAN QUENTIN, Calif. - SIRHAN SIRHAN, convicted and
sentenced to death for the assassination of Sen. Robert Ken
nedy, will be freed on parole from San Quentin prison in IOV2
years, the state decided Tuesday.
A parole date of Feb. 23, 1986 was established by the
state Adult Authority and will mean Sirhan, 31 years old now,
will have served 16 years and nine months in the prison.
Sirhan, who attended the parole hearing at San Quentin,
was spared death in the gas chamber by the 1972 state
Supreme Court ruling which held capital punishment uncon
stitutional.
Rocky to be on 76 Ford ticket
NEW YORK - Pres. GERALD FORD, saying "I see no
reason to change,” wants NELSON ROCKEFELLER to be his
vice presidential running mate next year, the New York News
reported Tuesday in an exclusive interview.
In standing by Rockefeller, Ford obviously had rejected
the suggestion of one of his political advisors that he throw
open the vice presidential nomination at the next year’s GOP
convention in order to satisfy the conservative wing of the
party.
In his interview with the News, top Washington corres
pondents, Ford said he believed a Ford-Rockefeller ticket
could win the presidential election next year.
Douglas into hospital for tests
NEW YORK - Supreme Court Justice WILLIAM O.
DOUGLAS has been transferred from a rehabilitation unit to
the University Hospital of the New York University Medical
Center for testing and observation, it was disclosed Tuesday.
But a spokesman for the NYU Medical Center’s Institute
of Rehabilitation Medicine, where Douglas was admitted in
April after suffering a stroke, stressed that the justice “has
been making excellent progress in his therapy program."
Routine monitoring tests will be performed to confirm the
proper functioning of his pacemaker,” a spokesman said.